As day broke, around 50 French hunters, wolf lieutenants and local farmers stood motionless, rifles in hand, gazing silently into the forest of Caussols in the Alpine foothills of Provence, reports The Daily Telegraph.
A few miles upwind, dozens of beaters in fluorescent orange and yellow tops began their arduous march though deep snow over steep, wooded terrain, making strident calls and firing shots into the air as they went.
Sandwiched between the two lines, the hunters hoped, were anything up to three packs of wolves that local sheep farmers say are ruining their age-old pastoral existence with incessant attacks on their flocks. Camera traps caught images of them only 48 hours previously. The clamour of the beaters was designed to flush them of the woods and into the line of the hunters' fire.
But the danger was not just for the wolves. "The trackers will be behind the animals. Be sure to shoot downwards," Louis Bernard, regional head of the hunting and wildlife commission, ONCFS, told the party beforehand.
"We've already had one fatal accident in the area this year, so please be careful. Only shoot when you have identified the animal."
Situated in the pre-Alps just 25 miles inland from Nice and 15 miles from Grasse, France's perfume capital, the wild, rugged landscape of Caussols could not be further removed from the glitz of the Riviera.
In January alone, farmers in these hills lost around 100 sheep to the grey wolf, which is making a lightning comeback in France and other parts of Europe; in Spain, packs are breeding a mere 40 miles from Madrid.
Read more of this report from The Daily Telegraph.